Division Research
MD Anderson’s Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine division is dedicated to providing the best care to our patients. Not only is this done through clinical tactics but also through innovative research.
Faculty laboratories focus on mechanisms related to pain, opioid actions and neurological diseases within the context of cancer. Each lab employs multidisciplinary approaches and tools such as electrophysiology, protein expression analysis, animal models and molecular analyses to understand the intricate molecular pathways underlying these conditions. These research endeavors aim to identify potential targets and strategies to alleviate pain, mitigate opioid-related complications and ultimately improve cancer treatment outcomes.
Division Research Laboratories
Abdi Laboratory
The Abdi Lab is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying pain and related neuropathology involved in cancer, with multidisciplinary approaches and tools including immunohistochemistry, protein expression, electrophysiology (patch-clamp recording), mammalian cell culture and animal models.
Cata Laboratory
The Cata Laboratory is dedicated to deciphering the role of mu-opioid receptor signaling in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. In 2014, Cata founded the Anesthesiology and Surgical Oncology Research Group. His group is focused on translational and clinical research and is dedicated to investigating the impact of perioperative interventions on oncological outcomes. He has several funded clinical trials and has published more than 220 peer-reviewed publications.
Dougherty Laboratory
The Dougherty Lab examines mechanisms of chronic pain, including neuropathic pain related to metastasized cancer and chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.
Pan Laboratory
The Pan laboratory neuroscience research focuses on the function of voltage- and ligand-gated ion channels and synaptic plasticity in chronic pain, opioid actions, and neurogenic hypertension. Our current studies include: (1) neural circuitry and molecular mechanisms of chronic neuropathic pain caused by cancer chemotherapy, surgery, and nerve trauma; (2) signaling transduction mechanisms involved in opioid-induced hyperalgesia and analgesic tolerance; and (3) roles of the hypothalamus and sympathetic nervous system in neurogenic hypertension caused by chronic stress and clinically used medications.
Pan ZZ Laboratory
Research projects in the Pan ZZ lab have made significant impacts and conceptual advances in the fields of epigenetic mechanisms of chronic pain, functional interactions of chronic pain and opioid reward, synaptic plasticity and molecular modulation of glutamate receptors, and opioid receptor signaling and trafficking.
Sharma Laboratory
The research focus of Sharma Lab is innate immune responses in acute and chronic disease conditions. Specifically, the research group is engaged in understanding the myeloid cell generation, turnover and effector functions in regulation of inflammation in pneumonic and oncologic sepsis, chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) and breast cancer. We are conducting highly translational and clinical research using genetically engineered mouse models and patient samples aimed at diagnostic and therapeutic targeting of neutrophil and macrophage responses in these disease conditions.
Yan Laboratory
The Yan Lab is interested in understanding structure, function and regulation of mammalian ion channels related to pain, neurological diseases and cancer, with multidisciplinary approaches and tools including mass spectrometry-based proteomics, electrophysiology (patch-clamp recording), protein expression and structural analyses, mammalian cell culture and animal models.